I totally agree the guy is a loose cannon. Your dog did nothing a million other dogs haven't done and unless the guy has NEVER walked a trail like that before, this is not the first time he's been barked at, let's face it. We ALL have encountered dogs just like that. He's a freak, and wanted to show off, much like arsonists watch their fires, or murderers often show up at victim's funerals.

Where did I say I disagreed with that, Selzer? They guy was "one second from shooting the dog?" BS. If that was true, the gun would have been drawn, aimed, and finger on the trigger when the dog first barked. No... this was just an idiot who was startled by the dog and had a few mins to stew about it while walking up to them later in the parking lot (or wherever the ski change happened). The fact that he brandished his weapon was wrong and illegal, as I said in my first response.

This guy was a moron who wanted to pull a power trip and give the OP an earful. Nothing more. Both people and all dogs got to walk away alive. That's probably a good thing.

Back several decades ago when I was seventeen, I was in our used book shop in the middle of the night with my sister, taking a break after putting together a bunch of book shelves. An auxiliary cop came in, and I started walking out of the back room and right into the guy. We startled each other. I said, "you scared the shtuff out of me!" (only I didn't say "shtuff.") He said that he usually would have came in with his gun drawn. Both of our responses were from being startled. By the time he made his response, I had enough presence of mind to NOT ask, "They let you carry a gun?" (Small town, and this auxiliary cop was 18 -- he told me that later that night, when he was asking me about my sister -- yeah TMI.)

Anyhow, by the time this guy got down to the parking lot, startle-response was long gone. What was going on, was the product of stewing about someone having a good time with their dogs, and just having to show someone that he was ready to shoot something. There is nothing wrong with getting angry about something, nothing wrong with saying something about it. But this wasn't a startle-response. This guy went a step farther, and used his gun to let the other person know how angry he was. That is not enough inhibition going on, there -- scary.

to be honest, he probably would've shot your dog even if she weren't barking. people are just dumb, and as many other have mentioned, trigger happy.

good dog for warning you of this creep. i do not believe you did anything wrong. if we're out offleash on a trail and come across a person, i call my dogs back to me, leash em, get off the trail and then encourage them to bark. no one should be approaching me on a remote trail anyways. not there looking for friends or long conversations, just move along now.

i applaud you though, for recognizing this as a potential problem and your eagerness to act on it.

My understanding was that the dog was off-leash? And the dog running and barking, that can be scary, especially for someone who has had a serious dog bite. The fact that the guy has been bitten seriously makes him all the more likely to be bitten again. This could be because his own actions might make dogs more reactive in the first place, or his fear of dogs since his bite might make dogs more apprehensive of him. Either way, a dog running loose and barking in such a manner that it is directed toward a stranger, is cause for that stranger to comment or expect an apology.

This yayhoo went overboard though.

And, sometimes we think we got our dogs at the next level, and then they surprise us, and we have to take them back a few steps and work more with them. If we are running radio-controlled cars, we could have a 100% certainty what reaction will follow each action. But with living creatures we cannot ever achieve 100%. I personally do not think that the answer is to always keep every dog muzzled, caged, or tethered to us. I think at some point, when we are in the high nineties, a part of our training can be off-lead work around other people.

Unless the dog is HA (just my opinion)! Then no off leash where there is a chance of other people around!

It is not illegal for a dog to bark at someone three times. If Your dog would have done that to me, I would have spoken to the dog, not come unglued.

That guy threatened you. Showing you his gun was a threat. It is NOT legal to flash a gun at someone in order to intimidate them.

I respect your desire to make sure your dogs are good citizens. However, I wonder what this guy might have done had you NOT had your dogs with you.

I think that I missed something - what exactly did the guy do?

I thought he just showed a pistol that he had. Did he carry it illegally? That is, no permit? Then by all means, report him to a police officer. Or if he threatened the OP by pointing it or saying something like I will shoot you.

Did the guy say/do these things? Or maybe even worse?

I must have missed it in the thread.

BTW, isn't a barking charging dog considered a threat?

Did the OP ever say how close the dog was to the guy before she got any control back over the dog?

The guy pulled the gun out of his chest holster but didn't point it at me.

Why would someone remove their gun from the holster? Unless they were going to use it? The only other reason I can think of is to intimidate someone. He could have just said, "Hey, your dog scared the crap out of me, and I'm armed to protect myself - you should be more careful next time." He didn't have to show his firearm. And even if he did want to prove that he wasn't making up a story, just opening up his jacket to show the holster would be enough. This guy sounds like a jerk to me.

As if being able to pull the trigger on a handgun is MANLY. I'm fat, female, and 52 and I can pull a trigger just fine. And since I'm not all worried about looking macho, my plain old shotgun would easily take out any idiot brandishing a pistol. Guns aren't for posing or waving around.

Had it been me I'd have peed my pants LOL ... But, I'm Canadian, and we don't see that many guns! LOL (Ha, I think the only time I've seen a gun is on a cop ... hmmm ... yup, pretty sure that's it!)

I don't know your gun laws, everyone else seems to know them - which is good! But I don't think you or your dogs did anything wrong.

My friend and I walk our dogs all the time in the woods / hills, etc. and they are off leash. Plenty of times they have barked to "alert" us that someone is there. We always call them back (just like you did!) and they came (just like your's did). We'll put them in a sit / stay beside us and then we have a laugh about how our dogs "startled" them. 99% of the time we get major compliments on how well trained our dogs are.

AND ... we've even had comments like: well, out here, you'd want a dog to be on the look out for you ...

I think you just ran into an idiot, and I'm happy that you are able to post about it, and that nothing happened to you and your dogs.

We got back to the parking lot and changed our skis out to head out on the more narrow trails for some slower ski touring. All the dogs were relaxed. The guy we passed came down the trail. An older guy.

I said hello, he said "your dog scared the out of me".

I said, "I am so sorry, I called her right away, I didn't expect her to bark like that."

He said, "well, you're not the only one with a weapon out here," unzipped his jacket, and started to pull out a large revolver he had strapped to his chest.

I was somewhat in shock. He was handling the gun. My dogs were 100% neutral- and playing with each other and there was absolutely no threat or inference of a threat from me (female, young, smaller).

He said, "I was a second away from shooting your dog".

.

Ok - this is strictly the opinion of an 'older' person. I can see my husband doing the same thing to the OP if he was charged by a dog and startled. I don't know the extent of 'handling' the gun the guy in this thread did. My husband would not have taken out his pistol, and I doubt he would have even shown it to the OP. There isn't the need to.

However, my husband (being an older man, and father) would have gone to the OP and scolded her for allowing the dog to charge strangers. He would have made the point that people carry weapons and the situation could have turned out very bad for her dog.

One time he stopped and changed the tire for a car full of young girls late one night. He scolded them the entire time he was doing it. He also made the driver call her parents and let them know what was happening. They showed up before he was finished.

If the guy pulled out his weapon, actually unholstered it, and the OP felt threatened, then he took it too far. I agree. I would create a report.

Ok - this is strictly the opinion of an 'older' person. I can see my husband doing the same thing to the OP if he was charged by a dog and startled. I don't know the extent of 'handling' the gun the guy in this thread did. My husband would not have taken out his pistol, and I doubt he would have even shown it to the OP. There isn't the need to.

However, my husband (being an older man, and father) would have gone to the OP and scolded her for allowing the dog to charge strangers. He would have made the point that people carry weapons and the situation could have turned out very bad for her dog.

One time he stopped and changed the tire for a car full of young girls late one night. He scolded them the entire time he was doing it. He also made the driver call her parents and let them know what was happening. They showed up before he was finished.

If the guy pulled out his weapon, actually unholstered it, and the OP felt threatened, then he took it too far. I agree. I would create a report.

I am curious as to why is it ok for the OP to feel threatened because the guy showed a gun, and yet most folks here don't seem to feel that the guy had a right to feel equally threatened by a large charging barking dog? Just curious?

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